The face of the Congress campaign in Telangana, Anumula Revanth Reddy, has been chosen as the new chief minister of the southern state, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday, December 5. He will be sworn in on Thursday.
The decision was taken at a meeting attended by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and the party’s general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, apart from leaders like D.K. Shivakumar, who apparently conveyed to the central leadership that a majority of newly-elected legislators in the state preferred Revanth Reddy over others.
NDTV reported that 42 of the 64 Congress MLAs supported Revanth Reddy. Earlier, the Congress had decided to conduct the swearing-in ceremony on December 6, which was postponed following “objections” to Revanth’s candidature.
Reports said that leaders like former Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Bhatti Vikramarka, former Congress state chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, former minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and former deputy chief minister Damodar Raja Narasimha were among those who opposed Revanth Reddy on the grounds that he had corruption cases against him and could not deliver a majority of assembly seats in his Lok Sabha constituency Malkajgiri.
Some of these leaders had also opposed Revanth’s leadership and called him a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) implant in the Congress.
Revanth Reddy had joined the Congress from the TDP and was considered close to N. Chandrababu Naidu. He had begun his political career as an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad leader, traversing through many parties – including the Telangana (now Bharat) Rashtra Samithi.
He was made the Congress party’s state unit chief in 2021, soon after joining. In his role as the Pradesh Congress Committee president, he organised multiple rallies in which he aggressively attacked chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) and his government for failing to meet the people’s expectations.
The strategy worked in reviving the Congress and dislodged the BJP, which was fast emerging as the primary opposition party in the state.
The central leadership’s decision swayed towards Revanth Reddy as his energetic leadership is credited with reviving the party’s fortunes in Telangana, where it was down and out after a majority of its MLAs in the last assembly merged with the BRS.
Congratulations to Telangana’s CM Designate, @revanth_anumula.
Under his leadership, the Congress govt will fulfill all its Guarantees to the people of Telangana and build a Prajala Sarkar. pic.twitter.com/ExfUlqY8Ic
Reddy does not come from a political family, as is usually the norm among top-rung leaders in the Telugu states. He is, however, married to Geetha, the niece of late Congress leader and former Union minister S. Jaipal Reddy.
Revanth Reddy has often rubbed KCR the wrong way. Though they never confronted each other after Revanth Reddy lost in the 2018 assembly elections, the Congress leader took aggressive jibes at KCR in public speeches whenever he got the chance.
The bad blood between the two grew in the aftermath of Revanth Reddy’s arrest in the ‘sting operation’ carried out to trap him while offering a bribe of Rs 50 lakh to a legislator of the then-Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the elections to Telangana’s legislative council.
Revanth Reddy continues to nurse a grouse against KCR that he came out of jail in the case on a twelve-hour bail granted by the courts to perform the marriage of his only daughter, Nymisha Reddy.
The case appeared to be a Damocles’s sword hung above his head by KCR, but Reddy has nevertheless managed to climb to the top.
Reddy went to jail for a few days on another occasion for allegedly shooting a video with drones of the farmhouse of KCR’s son and minister K.T. Rama Rao on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
The verbal abuse between the father-son duo one the one hand and Revanth Reddy on the other touched a crescendo in the campaign for the recently concluded elections.
Bhatti Vikramarka and N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, both of whom also played a significant role in the Congress’s victory, are likely to be made deputy chief ministers. Vikramarka led a 1500-km-long foot rally in the state, while Uttam Reddy consolidated the Congress’s ranks and helped the party mount an effective campaign against the popular KCR.
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